"Unconstrained" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unmixed with brains. Any machine giving a straight diametrical stroke will answer the purpose. The glass should be mounted so as to be perfectly free to move in every direction—that is to say, perfectly unconstrained. We mount all our flats on a piece of body Brussels carpet, so that every individual part of the woof acts as a yielding spring. The flats are held in place by wooden clamps at the edges, which never touch, but allow the bits of glass or metal to move slowly around if ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... while some half-dozen peasant women standing on ladders, gathering the apples from the trees, stopped in their work to look down, and share their enjoyment. It was a pleasant, lively, natural scene; a beautiful day, a retired spot; and the two girls, quite unconstrained and careless, danced in the freedom and ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... April 18th, a Thursday, to appear before the diet. Again he had to wait two hours till six o'clock. He stood there in the hall among the dense crowd, talking unconstrained and cheerfully with the ambassador of the diet, Peutinger, his patron at Augsburg. After he was called in, Eck began by reproaching him for having wanted time for consideration. He then put the second question to him in a ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... be collected, showing the gradual change from the first deviations of the early Gothic capital from its classical model, while it still retained the square abacus and the scroll under the angle and the symmetrical disposition of the leaves, down to the free and unconstrained treatment of the later Gothic capital. Yet with these decided relations in derivation, what a difference in the two manners of building! The Greek building is comparatively small in scale, symmetrical and balanced in its main design, highly finished in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various
... volitional, willful; free &c. 748; optional; discretional, discretionary; volitient[obs3], volitive[obs3]. minded &c. (willing) 602; prepense &c. (predetermined) 611[obs3]; intended &c. 620; autocratic; unbidden &c. (bid &c. 741); spontaneous; original &c. (casual) 153; unconstrained. Adv. voluntarily &c. adj.; at will, at pleasure; a volonte[Fr], a discretion; al piacere[It]; ad libitum, ad arbitrium[Lat]; as one thinks proper, as it seems good to; a beneplacito[It]. of one's won accord, of one's own free will; proprio motu[Lat], suo motu[Lat], ex ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... grave, Bax was hearty, and had always plenty to say without being obtrusive in his conversation. Moreover, his manners were good, and his deportment unconstrained and easy. But when he visited the widow's cottage he became awkward and diffident, and seemed to feel great difficulty in carrying on conversation. During the short time he had been at Deal since the wreck of the "Nancy," ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... individual, whoever that individual might chance to be. It was only the kindness of her nature expressing itself. Talking seemed like the exercise of a foreign language to her, but her smiling was free and unconstrained, and it belonged to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... be mitigated with wind." This is one of those dateless benefits conferred on man, which have no record in our vulgar day, though we still find some similitude to them in our dreams, in which we have a more liberal and juster apprehension of things, unconstrained by habit, which is then in some measure put off, and divested of memory, which we ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... entered a French Creole family have observed the gentle and respectful bearing of the children, their strict yet unconstrained observance of all the proprieties of their position, and also the affectionate intercourse between these and their parents, and toward each other—never an improper word; never an improper action; never riotous; never disobedient. They approach you ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... us talk of this frog. I have heard his chorus a thousand times in the dark. His is one of the songs of the night. Just watch him in the meadow pool. See the contentment in his double chin; he flings out three links of hind leg and carries his elbows akimbo; his attitudes are unconstrained; he is entirely without affectation; life never bores him; he keeps his professional engagements to the letter, and sings nightly through the season, whether ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... highest degree a spoilt child of fortune; he acquired everything without effort; existence fitted him like an elegant dress, and he wore it with such unconstrained amiability that people forgot to ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... tried to utter it. My best friend! Your goodness, your affection, your generosity of heart, have encouraged me in a hope which I can justify by nothing but the friendship and respect you have always shown me. My free, unconstrained access to your house afforded me the opportunity of intimate acquaintance with your amiable daughter; and the frank, kind treatment with which both you and she honoured me, tempted my heart to entertain the bold wish of becoming your son. My ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... a few weeks ago, this small expedition would have been planned together, discussed, shared, as a matter of course. At parting he kissed her hand—he had always exquisite manners; and she wished him a pleasant day with a voice quite cheerful and unconstrained. ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... easy to prove by experiment, that when we sit in an unconstrained position on a chair or saddle for instance, the direction of our shoulders will be at right angles to that of our legs, or, more correctly speaking, at right angles to a line bisecting the angle formed by our legs. Hence, when riding, we cannot continue to sit absolutely "square" (having our ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... self-correction; and it is soon found out whether the apparent negligence comes of loose and slovenly habits of mind, or whether it marks the confidence of one who has mastered his instrument, and can forget himself and let himself go in using it. The free unconstrained movement of Dr. Newman's style tells any one who knows what writing is of a very keen and exact knowledge of the subtle and refined secrets of language. With all that uncared-for play and simplicity, there was a fulness, a richness, ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... boy. We came to feel as familiar with our favorite pictures as though they hung in our own house. The Museum ceased to be a public building; it was our own. We went in with a nod to the old doorkeeper who came to know us and felt as unconstrained there as at home. We had our favorite nooks, our favorite seats and we lounged about in the soft lights of the rooms for hours at a time. The more we looked at the beautiful paintings, the old tapestries, the ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... outside; but nothing more which I can recall. My own share in the conversation has entirely faded from my memory: it is probable indeed that I had no share in it at all, being less at my ease in the conventional sphere of a drawing-room than in the more unconstrained atmosphere of a back alley. Yet in hours of depression, when, in spite of the most sincere desire to think favorably of mankind, I cannot fail to notice that I am not appreciated as I should be by the undiscerning world, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... Two such combatants had not been seen since the days of Pitt and Fox,—one, the champion of the people; the other, of the aristocracy. What each said was read the next day by every family in the land. Both were probably greatest in opposition, since more unconstrained. Of the two, Disraeli was superior in the control of his temper and in geniality of disposition, making members roar with laughter by his off-hand vituperation and ingenuity in inventing nicknames. Gladstone was superior in sustained reasoning, in lofty sentiments, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... her tone was both perfectly natural and simple, and more unconstrained than Mrs Mildmay had yet heard it—'mamma, isn't it really delightful, and isn't it almost wonderful that we should be all staying with Lady Myrtle and taking you to her? Isn't it really like ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... constraint in them, and have therefore thrown most of them aside. Conversation, like the Romish religion, was so incumbered with show and ceremony, that it stood in need of a reformation to retrench its superfluities, and restore it to its natural good sense and beauty. At present therefore an unconstrained carriage, and a certain openness of behaviour, are the height of good-breeding. The fashionable world is grown free and easy; our manners sit more loose upon us: Nothing is so modish as an agreeable negligence. In a word, ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... found it difficult to look her in the face. The passionate kisses I had given her twenty-three years before seemed to be staring me out of countenance. She, however, was perfectly unconstrained and smiled and laughed with contagious exuberance. As we chatted I now and again grew absent-minded, indulging in a mental comparison between the woman who was talking to me and the one who had made me embrace her and so cruelly trifled with my passion shortly before she ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... Berlioz possessed this elemental feeling for rhythm. Schumann was convinced on hearing the "Symphonie Fantastique" that in Berlioz music was returning to its beginnings, to the state where rhythm was unconstrained and irregular, and that in a short while it would overthrow the laws which had bound it so long. So, too, it seems to us, despite all the rhythmical innovations of our time. The personality that could beat out exuberantly music as rhythmically various and terse and free must indeed ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... discretionary; volitient^, volitive^. minded &c (willing) 602; prepense &c (predetermined) 611 [Obs.]; intended &c 620; autocratic; unbidden &c (bid) &c 741; spontaneous; original &c (casual) 153; unconstrained. Adv. voluntarily &c adj.; at will, at pleasure; a volonte [Fr.], a discretion; al piacere [It]; ad libitum, ad arbitrium [Lat.]; as one thinks proper, as it seems good to; a beneplacito [It]. of one's won accord, of one's own free will; proprio motu [Lat.], suo motu [Lat.], ex meromotu [Lat.]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... there are plentiful athletic bards, inland and seaboard, When through these States walk a hundred millions of superb persons, When the rest part away for superb persons, and contribute to them, When fathers, firm, unconstrained, open-eyed—when breeds of the most perfect mothers denote America, Then to ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... fastidious in speech and personal habit, truly majestic and generous, such was the shy woodland companion with whom Diane chose willfully to spend her idle hours, finding the girl's unconstrained intervals of silence, her flashes of Indian keenness, her inborn reticence and naive parade of the wealth of knowledge Mic-co had taught her, a most bewildering book in which there was daily something new ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... so that I snatched up my hat, and prepared for a sally beyond the cultivated farm and ornamented grounds of Mount Sharon, just as if I were desirous to escape from the realms of art, into those of free and unconstrained nature. ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... to the king her father, you have a mind to marry me, and think to oblige me by it; but where shall I find such stately palaces and delicious gardens as I have with your majesty? Under your good pleasure I am unconstrained in all things, and receive the same honours that are paid to your own person. These are advantages I cannot expect to find any where else; men ever love to be masters; and I do not care to be ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... the parish-pulpit. What his scholars learn will be worth knowing, if it be not very profound. They will learn probity and goodness, and it will not be ferruled into them either. Clearly, they do not fear the master, or they would not be so unconstrained in his presence. They would not make snow balls, as one has done, and another is doing. Soon they will begin to pelt each other, and the passers by will not mind the snow balls, if they will only remember how they themselves felt, and behaved, after ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... agreeable aisance, that air of the world of the ancien regime, courteous, entertaining, without the slightest affectation, speaking French as well as any Englishwoman of my acquaintance; and, above all, with that essentially polite, unconstrained, simply cheerful manner of the good society of that day, which in our hard-working, business age appears to be ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... She was a remarkable girl. If she was not beautiful, she was better-looking than I was, and she possessed a something, I know not what, more powerful than beauty to fascinate men. Perhaps it was her unconstrained naturalness. In walking, sitting, standing—whatever she did—her movements and attitudes were not impeded or unduly masked by artificial restrictions. I should not have called her profound, but what she said upon the commonest subjects was interesting, because it ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... bright-looking woman walking with hasty step along Orchard Street so early, with a large nosegay in her hand? Can it be Janet Dempster, on whom we looked with such deep pity, one sad midnight, hardly a fortnight ago? Yes; no other woman in Milby has those searching black eyes, that tall graceful unconstrained figure, set off by her simple muslin dress and black lace shawl, that massy black hair now so neatly braided in glossy contrast with the white satin ribbons of her modest cap and bonnet. No other woman ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... Almah. The manners of these people were such that we were still left as unconstrained as ever in our movements, and always, wherever we went, we encountered nothing but amiable smiles and courteous offices. Everyone was always eager to do anything for us—to give, to go, to act, ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... visit—a very unpleasant necessity evidently on his part. I was unconstrained in the cordiality with which I received both his father and himself—for it was heart-felt on this occasion. Old feelings came back to me so vividly that night, and my own dear father seemed so visibly recalled by the presence once more of our unbroken circle, ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... Luxemburg for sympathy. He could but hover on the outskirts, conscious that he must cut a ridiculous figure, but unable to detach himself from the neighbourhood of the magnet. As he looked back on the happy weeks of unconstrained intercourse, when he came to her as freely as did these young girls with all his troubles, he felt as if the King had destroyed all his joy and peace, and yet that these flutterings of heart and agonies of shame and fits of despair were ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the same as that which we have found less directly phrased in Crevecoeur. But let us quote the lines that follow the exordium—now we should find the poet unconstrained and fancy-free:— ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... female character, in its loveliest forms, ever exhibited. She impressed me continually with a sense of the high intellectual and moral qualities by which she was distinguished, but still left me as unconstrained as if I had been conversing with a beloved child. There was an air of graceful and unaffected ease; an instinctive regard to the most delicate proprieties of social intercourse; a readiness to communicate, and yet a desire to listen; ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady
... and functions of the other. The test of civilization is the position of women. Where they are wholly slaves, man is wholly barbarous; and the measure of progress from barbarism to civilization is the recognition of their equal right with man to an unconstrained development. Therefore, when Mr. Mill unrolls his petition in Parliament to secure the political equality of women, it bears the names of those English men and women whose thoughts foretell the course of civilization. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... according to his capacity for climbing, and direct, either to the summit or the base, the attention of him who desires to "greet it with a holy kiss." He who has been dipt in the Shannon is presumed to have obtained, in abundance, the gift of that "civil courage" which makes an Irishman at ease and unconstrained in all places and under all circumstances; and he who has kissed the Blarney stone is assumed to be endowed with a fluent and persuasive tongue, altho it may be associated with insincerity; the term "Blarney" being generally used to characterize words that are meant neither ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... since he had entered Canon Pascal's study, and they had been left in uninterrupted conversation. It was time for him to go; yet it seemed to him as if he had still so much to pour into Phebe's ear, that many hours would not give him time enough. Unconstrained speech had proved a source of ineffable solace and strength to him. He had been dying of thirst, and he had found a spring of living waters. To Phebe, and to her alone, he was still a living man, unless ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... Day in Rome; the same here as there, with no difference at all. There was the calm of manner that had struck her then, along with the readiness for action; the combination was peculiar, and expressed in every turn of head and hand. Here, in a strange house, he was as absolutely at ease and unconstrained as if he had been on the quarterdeck of his own ship. Is it the habit of command? thought Dolly. But that does not necessarily give a man ease of manner in his intercourse with others who are not under ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... seemed to Panshin that he had known her for an age, and Lisa, the same Lisa whom, at any-rate, he had loved, to whom he had the evening before offered his hand, had vanished as it were into a mist. Tea was brought in; the conversation became still more unconstrained. Marya Dmitrievna rang for the page and gave orders to ask Lisa to come down if her head were better. Panshin, hearing Lisa's name, fell to discussing self-sacrifice and the question which was more capable of sacrifice—man or woman. ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... conception of the Biblical week of creation, which appears to us exegetically much more {304} natural and unconstrained than any other, we alone reach that conception which the author of that record intends to reach; namely, a conception really worthy of God, of his temporal relation to the world, and of the relation of human days to the divine days of creation; we get a foundation ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... there had been much gossip, and various explanations of Sidonie's departure had been made. Some said that she had eloped with a lover, others that Risler had turned her out. The one fact that upset all conjectures was the attitude of the two partners toward each other, apparently as unconstrained as before. Sometimes, however, when they were talking together in the office, with no one by, Risler would suddenly start convulsively, as a vision of the crime passed ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... blush, but I think there are two sides to this question. May it not be possible that God sends a message directly from one heart to another as He does not to the many? Does He not speak through the living voice and the pen that is that voice, as He does not do in the less unconstrained form of print? At any rate, I love to believe that He directs each word and look and tone; inspires ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... him and everyone is welcomed with the same benevolence, which already goes for a good deal. But what is extremely poignant is at the end of the seance to see the people who came in gloomy, bent, almost hostile (they were in pain), go away like everybody else; unconstrained, cheerful, sometimes radiant (they are no longer in pain!!). With a strong and smiling goodness of which he has the secret, M. Coue, as it were, holds the hearts of those who consult him in his hand; he addresses himself in turn to the numerous persons who come to consult ...
— Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion • Emile Coue
... and no woman in New France equalled Angelique in the perfection of her attire. She studied his tastes in her conversation and demeanor, which were free beyond even her wont, because she saw that a manner bold and unconstrained took best with him. Angelique's free style was the most perfect piece of acting in the world. She laughed loudly at his wit, and heard without blushes his double entendres and coarse jests, not less coarse because spoken in the polished dialect of Paris. She stood it all, but with no more result ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... be urged more fully further on, and that in fact the special conditions of old age do not and cannot express the true law and tendency of the dynamic relations of life in the face of its evident advance upon the Earth. The law of the unconstrained cell is growth on an ever increasing scale; and although we assume the organic configuration, whether somatic or reproductive, to be essentially unstable, so that continual inflow of energy is required merely to ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... root out this poor, innocent, deserving people, whom our utter inability to govern, or to reconcile, gave us no sort of right to extirpate. Whatever the merits of that extirpation might have been, it was on the footsteps of a neglected people, it was on the fund of unconstrained poverty, it was on the acquisitions of unregulated industry, that anything which deserves the name of a colony in that province has been formed. It has been formed by overflowings from the exuberant population of New England, and by emigration ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... of as "free by nature," the mode of his existence as well as his destiny is implied; his merely natural and primary condition is intended. In this sense a "state of nature" is assumed in which mankind at large is in the possession of its natural rights with the unconstrained exercise and enjoyment of its freedom. This assumption is not raised to the dignity of the historical fact; it would indeed be difficult, were the attempt seriously made, to point out any such condition as actually existing or as having ever occurred. Examples of a savage ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... romantic landscape through which they strolled, and which varied its features at every step. To these observations, although they seemed to come from a heart occupied by more gloomy as well as more important cares, Isabella endeavoured to answer in a manner as free and unconstrained as it was possible for her to assume, amid the involuntary apprehensions ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... with the superiority which it gave him at the moment, that he rubbed his hands, chuckled, and finally, his sense of dignity giving way to the full feeling of triumph, he threw himself into his easy-chair, and laughed with unconstrained violence till he lost his breath, and the tears ran plentifully down his cheeks as he strove to recover it. Meanwhile, the royal cachinnation was echoed out by a discordant and portentous laugh from behind the arras, like that of one who, little accustomed to give way to such emotions, feels himself ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... the outer world. There it is subjected to putrefaction as in a grave. Introversion leads into the depths of one's very heart. "Where were you formed?" "In my heart [or inner man]." "Where after this?" "In the Way to the Lodge." "What determined you...?" "My own free and unconstrained will." The uninitiated are recommended to take counsel seriously with regard to their important resolution. "Why are you...?" "Because I was in darkness and desired light." The death symbol in the sch. K. is later to be considered. I can naturally ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... right, though. Rough as he looked, he was born with a tender heart; but habit, example, and independent command, and long unconstrained temper, made him appear the fierce savage man I often thought him. A large quantity of our water and provisions, and stores of all sorts, were thrown overboard, as was everything that was not absolutely necessary, to lighten the boat as much as possible. Yet, ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... observable beneath the ample folds of the garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath set here and there with shining icicles. Its dark brown curls were long and free; free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester |
